Der Geiger
Ron was sitting in the Gryffindor common room and idly thinking about how little he wanted to do his Divination homework when the perfect distraction arrived: his twin brothers exploding into the common room, shaking with bouts of raucous laughter. "What's happened now?" he eagerly asked his older brothers.
Hermione frowned at Ron's desperate attempt to avoid working. "Ron, you're supposed to be doing your Divination homework! How you can act as though it's perfectly acceptable to take sporadic, frequent breaks is beyond me."
"Well, I'm divining that Fred and George just did something that is either hilarious, could land them in trouble, or both." He turned and grinned at his twin brothers. "Well, am I right?"
"I'd say that'd earn an 'Acceptable.' What do you think, Fred?"
"That's about right, I'd say." George gave a melodramatic sigh before continuing, "Tsk tsk, only an Acceptable. What would Mum say?"
"Come on then, spill it!" Ron continued his grinning, despite the mock reprimand. "What'd you do?"
"Let's just say we were helping the Dungeons look festive for the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game that's coming up."
"Think red paint."
"Lots of red paint."
"And gold-colored paint."
"Don't forget the gold."
Ron let out a loud laugh and clapped his hands together. "I can't wait to see the look on the Slytherin's faces tomorrow morning."
George gave another melodramatic sigh and exaggeratedly placed the back of his hand against his forehead. "Alas, there shall be no red and gold to greet the eyes of all the little Slytherin boys and girls tomorrow."
Fred mimicked George's pose. "Alas, Filch caught us in the act and made us clean it all up. Without magic, too."
"Filch's expression at the end was priceless, though." George shared a conspiratorial smile with Fred.
Ron leaned forward on the edge of his seat, eagerly awaiting the continuation of their story. "What happened?"
"Do you think we should tell him, George?" Fred accompanied his words with a raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know if we should scar ickle Ronnie and his young, innocent mind," George replied with a mock maternal look.
"Aw, come on, just spill," Ron gave a slightly exasperated look at his brothers' stalling antics.
Fred shared another look with George before leaning in and stating, "Filch had a hickey."
Ron's face immediately formed a disgusted look. "EW! Why would you tell me that?"
The twins ignored his comment and instead continued, "And, see, we decided that we ought to fulfill our duty as good Samaritans and inform Filch of this."
"Well, unfortunately Filch didn't seem to appreciate this."
"But the look on his face was priceless. It went from utter to shock to disgust to the utmost rage."
"And, needless to say, he adamantly denied it. Accused us of having 'sick little minds.'"
"But we know what we saw. Very subtle, but it was there, right on the left side of his neck."
"Why are you describing it?" Ron burst out, looking rather as though he would like to curl up into a fetal position at such disgusting thoughts. "I don't want to hear anymore about Filch's hickey!"
The last sentence left his mouth at a rather elevated volume, earning the stares of about half the common room. "Say what, mate?" Seamus yelled from the other side of the room.
"Filch has a hickey!" One of the twins yelled back, earning the attention of the other half of the common room.
"I bet it's from Mrs. Norris!" Seamus exclaimed with a laugh. "I knew he was abnormally fond of that cat."
Part of the common room burst into laughter, while the other half still looked positively queasy at the topic of conversation.
"I bet it's from a vacuum cleaner or something. No way it's from a person," Dean Thomas added to his friend's words.
"What's a vacuum cleaner?" Ron asked with a confused look on his face.
"Muggle appliances don't work in Hogwarts!" Hermione hollered, clearly aggravated at the distractions from her homework.
"I bet it's from some foreign gal who thinks British accents are sexy," Lee Jordan poked his head into the conversation.
"Never use the word 'sexy' and 'Filch' in the same sentence," Ron followed his sentence with retching motions.
"Technically he didn't use the word Filch but, yech, I agree with you," Seamus nodded towards with Ron. "I still think my Mrs. Norris theory makes more sense."
"No, no, you know what it is. I bet it's one of the professors." General sounds of disgust echoed through the common room at this theory.
Another voice picked up on the idea. "McGonagall's around Filch's age, isn't she?"
There were several cries of "That's the head of our house you're talking about!"
"Besides, everyone knows that people over the age of 25 aren't allowed to have romantic feelings," Fred teased.
"Well, see, I think the issue is that McGonagall is too old for Filch," George stated in a matter of fact tone. "She's more around Flitwick's age, I'd guess."
"Flitwick could have given the hickey to Filch," Fred reciprocated his twin's light, matter of fact tone.
More cries of revulsion issued from common room's population. "There is the whole height issue to consider, though. I mean, I don't think Flitwick could even reach Filch's neck without a ladder," George continued in a conversational tone.
"Please, stop this all this talk!" Ron finally cried out, his hands clamped solidly over his ears. "Don't scar me with any more horrid mental images!"
The twins shook their heads at each other before replying in an innocent voice. "Really, Ron, you asked."
"I still say it's from Mrs. Norris," Seamus quipped under his breath.
Meanwhile, Filch sat in his bedroom, blissfully unaware that the next day just about the entire Gryffindor population would be giving him quizzical, disgusted looks. His thoughts were instead focused on those pesky Weasley twins; it felt as though they had been plaguing him for all of time. Their presence at Hogwarts could fit right into a list of punishments issued from the Greek gods.
He shook his head, as though doing so would clear such blood-pressure-raising thoughts from his head. His duties for the day were done and now he could relax and do what he liked best. He gently picked up Mrs. Norris before placing her down outside of his bedroom and closing the door; she seemed to have taken a disliking to his most recent hobby, so there was no reason to not spare her ears.
He walked over to his bed and slid out a long case from underneath it, snapping it open with a click before removing the instrument from its interior.
Plink plink plunk plank. He strummed his thumb across the instrument's four strings again. Plink plink plunk plank. He gave an annoyed sigh and started adjusting the strings. His violin just seemed to slip out of tune so easily. With a music stand opened in front of him, and the inky pages of a Mozart Concerto spread in front of his eyes, he happily set about practicing the violin.
Filch knew that for all intensive purposes he was a squib, but there was something especially satisfying about learning to play the violin after Dumbledore himself had said that music had a certain magic that was beyond all that was done at Hogwarts.
After he had finished playing the Concerto and had allowed Mrs. Norris back into the room (he was still unsure why she disliked the sound of the violin so much), he glanced at himself in the mirror before getting ready for bed.
How odd. The violin's neck rest seemed to have given him a small, red circular mark on his neck. If he didn't know better, he would have said it looked like a hickey. What a ridiculous thought.
…
A/N: This fic probably makes more sense if you have a music background; violin players who practice a lot get a distinctive mark on their neck from their neck rest which is referred to as a "violin hickey." As another note, this fic is a response to PanicAttack757's "The Love Bite Challenge" on the HPFC. As this is one of my first attempts at humor, constructive criticism is always appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Argus Filch, Hogwarts, etc.